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Insan Toplum insanthe journal of humanity and toplumsociety Iranian Muslim Reformists and Contemporary Ethics; Revival of “Utilitarianism” Hossein Dabbagh & Soroush Dabbagh Abstract: This paper raises a moral issue for contemporary post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals in Iran. According to traditional Islamic teachings, ethics enables people to transcend from this mundane world and offers guidance on ways to improve virtues. Most contemporary Iranian Muslim intellectuals have at- tempted to pave the way for accomplishing this goal. After clarifying the ways in which Iranian Muslim intellectuals have faith in virtue ethics as a best possible moral normative theory, we claim that virtue ethics fails to support some of our modern problems in the realm of politics such as human rights and democracy. Also, we argue that virtue ethics is not a good theory for ordinary average people who have weakness of will. A preliminary conclusion of the paper will be that utilitarianism, generally, and principle of utility, specifically, is a better solution to the modern problems. This, we believe, has been overlooked from the eyes of post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals. Yet, we suggest that among different versions of utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism is more justified to do this job. Keywords: secular ethics, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism, post-revolutionary Iran, Muslim reformists. Öz: Bu yazıda, İran’daki çağdaş devrim sonrası Müslüman entelektüellerin ahlaki bir sorunu ele alınmakta- dır. Geleneksel İslami öğretilere göre, ahlak, insanların bu dünyevi dünyayı aşmalarını sağlar ve erdemlerini geliştirme yollarını gösterir. Çağdaş İranlı Müslüman entelektüellerin çoğu bu amaca ulaşmanın yolunu aç- maya çalıştı. Öncelikle İranlı Müslüman entelektüellerin, erdem ahlakını mümkün olan en iyi ahlaki norma- tif teori olarak ele aldıklarını ifade ettikten sonra, erdem ahlakının insan hakları ve demokrasi gibi politik alandaki modern sorunlarımızı çözmede başarısız olduğunu iddia ediyoruz. Ayrıca, erdem ahlakının, zayıf iradeli ortalama insanlar için iyi bir teori olmadığını savunuyoruz. Makalenin en önemli sonuçlarından biri, genel olarak faydacılığın ve özel olarak fayda prensibinin, modern sorunlara daha iyi bir çözüm olacağıdır. Biz şuna inanıyoruz ki bu mesele devrim sonrası Müslüman entelektüellerin gözünden kaçmaktadır. Bunun- la birlikte, bu amaca ulaşmak için faydacılığın farklı versiyonları arasında kural-faydacılığının daha uygun olduğunu ileri sürmekteyiz. Anahtar Kelimeler: seküler etik, erdem ahlakı, faydacılık, kural-faydacılık, devrim sonrası İran, Müslüman reformcular. Dr., Doha Institute for Graduate Studies & Institute for Cognitive Science Studies. [email protected] Dr., University of Toronto. [email protected] © Scientific Studies Association Submission: 29.09.2017 DOI: 10.12658/M0229 Revision: 12.02.2018 The Journal of Humanity and Society, 2018, 19-32. Acceptance: 25.03.2018 insanvetoplum.org Online Publication: 02.04.2018 The Journal of Humanity and Society In framing the general laws of nature, it is granted we must be entirely guided by the public good of mankind, but not in the ordi- nary moral actions of our lives… The rule is framed with respect to the good of mankind; but our practice must be always shaped immediately by the rule. George Berkeley (1712, Sec. 31) Introduction The occurrence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979), followed by a broad “Isla- misation” of society, led to some unique consequences with regards to intellectual and religious life in Iran and provoked new theoretical, yet not abstract, problems in the face of Iranian Intellectuals. Throughout the past thirty years, post-revolu- tionary Iran has witnessed a sequence of discursive formations on Islam and its socio-political role. The revolution of 1979 signalled transformation of traditional Islam into an effective political ideology, conducive to mass mobilisation and in- strumental in the “Islamisation” of the new regime. The end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988, and the following decade of economic reconstruction and political pragma- tism, facilitated a gradual disaffection with political Islam and indicated the birth of an individualistic religiosity centred on the individuality of religious experience. In its turn, the emerging individualistic Islam contributed to further secularisation of the mass psyche and called upon the Iranian intelligentsia to formulate a new philosophy of religion and moral philosophy that could legitimize the birth—and also the growth—of the de-politicized Islam. Among others, Abdulkarim Soroush, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari and Mostafa Malekian are key participants in the formation of a new liberalist and ethical understanding of Islam in Iran, called “Religious Intellectualism”. In what follows, we will explore post-revolutionary ideas formed by some of the religious intellectuals with regards to ethics, religion and politics. Primarily we will analyse the relationship between religion and ethics from the perspective of post-revolutionary religious intellectuals. Consequently, we examine virtue ethics as a dominant normative theory among intellectuals. In the fourth section, we dis- cuss utilitarianism as an alternative normative ethical theory for politics. Finally, we argue that rule-utilitarianism is more plausible than other forms of utilitarian- ism. We believe that although utilitarianism has been a formal part of Islamic mor- al reasoning, rule-utilitarianism has been overlooked from the eyes of post-revolu- tionary Muslim intellectuals. 20 Hossein Dabbagh & Soroush Dabbagh, Iranian Muslim Reformists and Contemporary Ethics; Revival of “Utilitarianism” Post-Revolutionary Muslim Intellectuals in Iran: The Relationship between Religion and Ethics The relationship between religion and morality in the Abrahamic religions is a much-discussed subject in moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion. Some theorists believe that morality is primarily based on religion. Others insist that it is not. However, in order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the relationship be- tween religion and morality, let us make a distinction between the three different relationships between religion and morality, i.e. semantic relationship, ontological relationship and epistemological relationship (Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach & Basinger, 2012, Ch. 14). To say that morality is semantically based on religion means that moral no- tions, such as fairness, unfairness, good, bad, ought, ought not, etc., can only be understood in the light of scripture. This means that moral notions have no inde- pendent and inherent definitions. In the opposite camp, theorists who hold that morality is not semantically based on religion are of the view that moral notions can have meanings without reference to scripture. Moreover, theorists who maintain that morality is ontologically based on reli- gion believe that the materialisation and delineation of moral values in the world around us hinge on the will of God and that the coming into existence of moral val- ues such as good, bad etc., are dependent on God’s will. Then, attributing ‘goodness’ to ‘honesty’ and ‘badness’ to ‘dishonesty’, for instance, will be in keeping with the will of God and we can seek them in the world around us. In the Islamic tradition, for example, the Ash‘arites believed that morality was ontologically based on reli- gion and could not exist independently of God’s will. If God willed that something was good, it was good and if God willed that something was bad, it was bad. It was the attachment of God’s will to something that gave it moral substance. And, with- out God’s will, moral values would not exist in the world; as a result of which, we would be unable to formulate moral judgments. In the opposite camp, the Mu‘ta- zilites were of the view that morality was not ontologically based on religion. They believed that moral notions were intrinsically and rationally good or bad, and that it was possible to make judgments about their existence in the world and to delineate them independently of scripture and based on rational discoveries and teachings. The epistemological relationship between morality and religion reveals how we can arrive at valid moral knowledge. Theorists who believe that morality is episte- mologically based on religion deny the epistemological validity of moral claims that have been derived without recourse to and reliance on scripture. Take, for example, the moral proposition, ‘It is a duty to keep a promise.’ Anyone who believes that 21 The Journal of Humanity and Society morality is epistemologically based on religion will only accept this moral propo- sition if it is justified on the basis of religious teachings. In other words, rational moral precepts and judgments, which have been derived from Reason Alone, have no inherent validity and do not convey any information. On the opposite end, those who believe that morality is not epistemologically based on religion—i.e. theorists such as Bentham, Kant, Moore, Ross, Hare, etc., whose positions can be dubbed as ‘secular morality’—view rational moral precepts favourably and organise their con- ception of morality around them. These theorists are of the view that the epistemo- logical validity of moral claims is attained using epistemological resources such as practical reason and rational evidence. The debate on the relationship between religion and morality, and the question of whether morality is or is not based on religion do not seem to have exercised the
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